Theodosius Dobzhansky — biology (genetics) with roots in the Russian Empire
Theodosius Dobzhansky was a Ukrainian-American geneticist and evolutionary biologist born in Nemyriv (Russian Empire, now Ukraine) who wrote Genetics and the Origin of Species (1937) — the book that unified Charles Darwin's theory of natural selection with Gregor Mendel's genetics, creating the Modern Synthesis and founding the field of modern evolutionary biology.
Tracing the roots — Nemyriv (Ukr)
Born in Nemyriv (Russian Empire) in 1900 and educated at Kiev University, Dobzhansky emigrated to the United States in 1927. His famous declaration — 'Nothing in biology makes sense except in the light of evolution' — is the most quoted sentence in all of biology. His Ukrainian origins and his American career represent one of the most consequential transfers of Russian Imperial scientific talent to the United States.
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Nemyriv (Ukr). At the time, this region lay within the Russian Empire, which spanned from Poland to the Pacific.
A career defined by ambition
"Nothing in biology makes sense except in the light of evolution."